St. James-Assiniboia, Winnipeg

St. James-Assiniboia
Grant's Old Mill on Sturgeon Creek.
Country	Canada
Province	Manitoba
City	Winnipeg
Population (2011)	61,764

St. James-Assiniboia is a major district in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Located in the far western part of the city, it is bounded on the north by the Rural Municipality of Rosser and the Canadian National Railway's Oak Point line, on the south by the Assiniboine River, on the west by the Rural Municipality of Headingley, and on the east by the Canadian Pacific Railway's La Riviere line.

St. James-Assiniboia is a large community in the western section of Winnipeg. It is most often referred to as simply "St. James" and consists of the neighbourhoods of Old St. James, Deer Lodge, Silver Heights, Birchwood, Sturgeon Creek, Woodhaven, Heritage Park, Kirkfield Park, Westwood, Crestview, St. Charles, and Brooklands.

It is primarily residential, and is mainly a middle class area but there are poorer pockets in the eastern part of St. James, in Brooklands, and in St. Charles, and wealthier areas near the St. Charles Country Club, and along the Assiniboine River. There is some industrial development in the Murray Industrial Park in the north central part of the neighbourhood and near the Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport which is located in St. James. There is substantial commercial development along Portage Avenue, the area's main thoroughfare, and near the western edge of the community near the Perimeter Highway, where the Unicity Shopping Mall once stood. Although the Polo Park area is not considered part of St. James-Assiniboia for census purposes, it is considered part of the district of St. James on many maps.

Historically, the area was a farming community along the north bank of the Assiniboine River populated by an Anglo-Métis, or mixed Scottish/English and aboriginal population, compared to the French-speaking Métis people who settled further upriver at St. François Xavier, Manitoba and along the east banks of the Red River. In 1853 the Church of England was given a grant of land from the Hudson's Bay Company; this land was named St. James Parish. Before the province of Manitoba was created the area was governed by the Council of Assiniboia (1835-1870). After the creation of Manitoba by the purchase of land from the Hudson's Bay Company by the Dominion Government of Canada, the area of the Parish of St. James was administered by the Province of Manitoba; municipal incorporation soon followed. When Treaty 1 was signed in 1871 with the Chippewa (Anishinabe) and Cree Indigenous Peoples, settlement into the region increased and municipal development likewise accelerated. The area eventually became the City of St. James, the RM of Assiniboia, and the Village of Brooklands.